


An Idea Like A Ghost

by cognomen



Series: small god of words [2]
Category: Hannibal (TV)
Genre: Canon-Typical Violence, Canonical Character Death, Gore, M/M, Minor Character Death
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2015-06-23
Updated: 2015-06-23
Packaged: 2018-04-05 17:27:09
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,341
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/4188540
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/cognomen/pseuds/cognomen
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>
  <i>The call that comes, rousing Pazzi after three hours of dreamless sleep taken on his own couch, is as much taunt as advisement.</i>
</p><p>  <i>"Someone is painting pictures again, Chief Inspector," the voice says - not a kind voice, the tone of a subordinate with little faith in his superiors."That makes it a mess you should see." </i></p><p>-</p><p>The beginning of an investigation and the ghosts of a time he doesn't yet know is past. In which Pazzi is haunted by an idea that isn't yet fully formed.</p>
            </blockquote>





	An Idea Like A Ghost

The call that comes, rousing Pazzi after three hours of dreamless sleep taken on his own couch, is as much taunt as advisement.

"Someone is painting pictures again, Chief Inspector," the voice says - not a kind voice, the tone of a subordinate with little faith in his superiors."That makes it a mess you should see."

It is a taunt he is too tired to rise to, he simply takes the address - and curses the audacity. It will be a long flight to Palermo, factoring in the time spent in the airports. But a gruesome murder at the Capella Palatina - or at least one left to be found there if it is truly il Mostro is a sting to his pride. He takes a copy of his files - he keeps three in addition to the one sitting in Questura archives with all the original evidence. Scant little. One box.

On the plane he reads again his battered copy of _Mind Hunter_ , and the words blur and fuzz in his tired vision, even through his reading glasses. He turns a page, and within is the old bookmark of a silver, empty packet - a condom wrapper. It brings to mind the ghost of confident arms ringing his shoulders from behind, the point of a chin tucked over one as Anthony leaned over him - awake at last in the late morning.

He had asked, _'Do you ever sleep?'_ and this close to sleep now, Pazzi hears the voice again as if it were still next to his ear.

 _'Less,'_ he had said then, tucking the packet pointedly scattered into his lap between the pages to keep his place, _'when you are around.'_

 _'Buono amici, buononotte,'_ Anthony answers lyrically in his memory - his pronounciation is very good when he speaks inspired words. Pazzi does not know how he has them before his first coffee.

Pazzi finds twenty minutes of sleep at the end of the flight, with the dog-eared paperback folded closed in his lap and doesn't wake until the wheels jounce against the runway, equilbrium popping in his ears. He collects his carry on and his beaten leather briefcase - unreplaced since his wife had given it to him in honor of promotion. He has not checked any luggage.

A patrol car collects him, and Pazzi must put his luggage in the back where it is fenced in like a criminal.

"It's _something_ , signore," the young poliziotti observes - he has not seen it, he is repeating things he has heard in proximity to his superiors, a dog whining anxiously to impress a stronger animal. Perhaps, Pazzi allows, softening his own outlook by deliberate application of fairness, he was only talkative. Conversation is still seen as harmless, speculation and gossip a national past time.

"We were hardly sure at first that it was even a body," the man continues. He is nervous. He does not like murder, this is why he is an officer, but his concept of death has been expanded by even proximal contact to this.

Pazzi closes his eyes and endures the drive in silence. The poliziotti says nothing else in the acid and apprehensive quiet. Pazzi does not want the man's opinion, he does not either want his own sensible response - he must reach out and see something better; the inspiration.

'Tell me about your _very vivid_ imagination,' the voice seems real against his ear, the warmth of breath passing against it is only a band of hot afternoon sun cutting at the right angle through the car window.

The officer unlocks Pazzi's briefcase, and he drags it dutifully out of the back of the car though he will not need it.

They usher him into the Capella Palantina through a back door, hoisting the police tape up for him as if sweeping the road for an emperor to pass. They must not know Pazzi very well. So far south the prejudice has not reached. It will soon, if this is the work of il Mostro. Has he come to Palermo and re-awakened slowly? 

The imagine in Pazzi's mind is one native to Palermo, from when he was very young.

The mummified girl, Rosalia Lombardo sleeping her hundred years and her eyes winking slowly open - hollow blackness in the light. This is the picture he sees of il Mostro in Palermo - still face, deathlike, eyes black pits that slowly grow deeper in the light - this native legend.

Inside, there are screens in front of the dais, white hospital blinders to hide the view and Pazzi feels irritation at this change of scene - that he could not with fresh eyes see what was fresh and untouched. There was no chance of it now - he could see pictures and see the body amidst the turning wheels of the justice system.

As he goes in, an inspector is going out, leading a man in glasses. Where has Pazzi seen those features before? He hesitates, reaching back. What had he heard when he'd last seen them? The shower running in the other room - the locker room, musty smelling where in the basement of the Questura men could shower off the day before going home. Blood, sometimes, the smell of decomp. Papers in his hands - a printed copy of a digital news letter about investigative techniques. A picture alongside the article. 

Will Graham is here in Sicily, and there is also a body. No coincidence.

Behind the screen the sight is also familiar but not in a way Pazzi expects or immediately pulls from memory. This is not a Botticelli - it is visceral and pink, skinless like the meat from a store. Pazzi must look at it a long time before he can see the signature, before, even, he can see beyond the suggestion of shape and convince himself it could be formed from the materials used.

"Is this everything?" he asks, aware slowly of the inspector standing behind him, to his left, looking at him like he might unfold more quickly than the heart.

"I think it says everything," the voice answers him - this is the man who had called Pazzi, gloated on the phone. Pazzi can sense now, with time and his irritation fading, that it was a paper front. This man cannot reach around the crime - there are no fingerprints to run, no identifying features, no doors to knock on with pictures, no dental records. Even height and weight would be approximate, a best guess by the coroner. 

"But _is_ it everything?" Pazzi repeats, serenely. In his mind, he unfolds the body - lanky and lean, long in limb before they all abort - no hands or feet. He confirms with his pen light, two gloved fingers easing through the gather of muscles until he can see inside like peeking into an unbloomed rose.

The tissue is soft, without rigor, and smells alarmingly like the last steaks he had bought from his butcher - clean, with no rot.

"There is also a bag," the inspector says. "Bloody clothes. Discards. We're going to process it for identifying evidence."

They won't find any to identify the killer. Likely, the victim will take some long time to place as well. Il Mostro stuck unconnected people - lovers who he came across or drifters who came across him. He has been silent for twenty years however. Why now was he sending such a message? To who? 

Three swords pierce the heart - the image is upside down, but he has seen it. He will remember. Pazzi has a good memory, when he has time to toy with it.

He waits for them to bring him the bag, and something moves in the edge of his vision - a sliding shadow by the lit offering candles. For a moment he thinks the elegant and assured motion is Anthony. Gone wandering even this far, as he was wont. Pazzi has not seen him in weeks - not uncommon- but when he turns his head it is only a trick of the light and wishful thinking, the suggestion of a pierced heart coming to life in his thoughts.

-

**Author's Note:**

> -There are more of these coming, I can't help myself.  
> -Also you might notice my Pazzi is kind of an amalgam of all sources - he takes mostly from the book and show for his internal workings, because I like that step further that the show took with his skills, but he holds onto some of Giancarlo's nervous habits. Gotta make the best of what little you have, right?  
> -Next piece should be a little happier and will begin the sort of moving around in the timeline these vignettes will have.


End file.
